Multiword units in Aboriginal English
387
Time adverbials
It is clear that adverbial compounds involving -
time exist in Standard English
(e.g.
sometimes). However, Aboriginal English modifies
these and also creates
others, as shown in the following examples:
I forgettin all time
‘I always forget’
an everytime I…forget to
close my window at night
‘and all the time I forget to close my window at
night’
Long time we caught two
down the river
‘A long time ago we caught two down at the
river’
We all know for long time
‘We have all known for a long time’
Sometime they sing they Ya-
magee song, y’know
‘Sometimes they sing their Yamagee [tribal]
songs’
Only dark time they come
around
‘they only come around in the dark’ or ‘they only
come around when it is dark’
In the case of
all time and
everytime there is no count / non-count noun con-
straint
as in Standard English, so that both expressions are essentially synony-
mous. The expression
long time in Aboriginal English may be used to convey
the meanings that Standard English
would express with either a long time ago
or for a long time. The intended meaning is made clear by the word order.
Sometime in Aboriginal English may carry the meaning of
sometimes in Stan-
dard English, although
sometime may also be used to mean (as
in Standard
English) ‘at some time’, as in
Project finishes this year sometime doesn't it? The
expression
dark time is open to two interpretations, either as a prepositional
phrase with the preposition omitted (as discussed above under Noun Phrase),
or as an adverbial, analogically
following the pattern of sometime,
all time and
long time.
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